The RNC Blamed 'Democrats Playing Games.' The Wrong Photo Was an Independent's.

The Republican National Committee went to court the night of Oct. 30 to pull a voter guide out of New Mexico polling places, and its chairman framed it in one line: "Democrats are playing games with our elections."

The guide was not a Democratic product. It was printed by the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan group. The wrong face in it belonged to Nehemiah J. Vasquez, an independent running for the Taos County Commission. And the League had admitted the mistake and corrected it online on Oct. 29, the day before the lawsuit was filed.

In the printed 2026 voter guide, Vasquez's photo ran in place of Larry Marker, the Roswell Republican challenging Sen. Ben Ray Luján. The League said the error was caught after the guides were already in production and could not be fixed before distribution.

It corrected the photo on VOTE411.org and in the digital guides from its four local Leagues. League president Hannah Burling called it an honest mistake and apologized to both Marker and Vasquez. The League says only the photo was wrong. Marker's answers and everything else about the race were printed correctly.

The RNC, the Republican Party of New Mexico and Marker sued Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver in Chaves County. On Monday, Nov. 2, the eve of the election, Fifth Judicial District Judge Jared Kallunki granted an injunction: the printed guides could not be handed out at voting locations.

By shortly after noon that day the Secretary of State had told county clerks statewide to pull the guides, and the agency's attorney said many clerks had already removed them. Voters who wanted the League's guide had to bring their own copy.

Here is the part the victory releases skipped. The lawsuit also argued that handing out any third-party voter guide at a polling place is illegal electioneering under New Mexico's 100-foot rule. Judge Kallunki declined to rule on that. The case was won on one bad photo, not on the law.

Whether these guides belong in polling places at all has flipped before. Under Republican Secretary of State Dianna Duran, the League's guides were kept out of polling places. In 2018, under Toulouse Oliver, the Secretary of State's office declared the guides nonpartisan, and county clerks began letting them in. The RNC calls that a reversal of state policy.

That policy has not changed. Asked whether the 2018 determination still stands, that the League's guides are nonpartisan and may be in polling places, Secretary of State spokeswoman Lindsey Bachman told the New Mexico Inquirer: "Yes." The Nov. 2 order to clerks, she said, "was specific to this year's guide from the League of Women Voters." And on the electioneering claim the judge left undecided: "Yes, the office plans to respond."

The state party is not hiding the goal. Executive Director Leticia Muñoz called the ruling a huge win and said the party will keep fighting so the guides are never distributed again, calling them "clearly electioneering." That is the question the judge left open, and the one that decides what voters can pick up at the polls next time.

Marker's photo error affected one race. The electioneering argument, if it wins, affects every race on every ballot.

How we reported this: this story draws on the League of Women Voters of New Mexico's Oct. 29 correction, the RNC's Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 releases, written answers from the Secretary of State's office on Nov. 5, reporting by the Las Cruces Sun-News, Albuquerque Journal and KRQE, and League and Secretary of State records on how the guides have been handled since 2012. We have not seen the court's written order. We asked the League, the Republican Party of New Mexico and the RNC how many printed guides were handed out and what happens to the electioneering claim now; their answers will be added with a dated update. If you are a county clerk or poll worker who handled the guides, we want to hear from you: [email protected].